In this article, you will find everything you need to know about Marketing Automations: what it is, how to activate it, and how it works for you and your guests.
Summary
What is Marketing Automations and why use it?
How to activate Marketing Automations
Troubleshooting & FAQ
💡What you need to know
Marketing Automations lets your restaurant automatically send the right email to guests at the right moment — after a cancellation, a no-show, before a birthday, or when a guest hasn't visited in over a year. Four pre-built automations are included, each with a customizable email template. You choose which to activate, adjust the timing, and personalize the content; the rest runs automatically.
1. What is Marketing Automations and why use it?
Marketing Automations keeps your restaurant top of mind for guests between visits, without any manual effort.
Available automations:
• Post-Cancellation: sends a re-engagement email after a guest cancels their booking
• Post-No-Show: sends a follow-up email when a guest doesn't arrive
• Birthday Greetings: sends a birthday email a set number of days before a guest's date of birth
• Win-Back: re-engages guests on a yearly cycle (minimum 1 year after their last visit)
Each automation includes a pre-built email template you can fully customize. You cannot use existing campaign templates, but all text in the provided template is editable. You can also adjust the timing.
2. How to activate Marketing Automations
In your Zenchef account, go to :
Create an automation
Select an automation → toggle ON → set timing → customize template (optional) → Save
Once you've created your automation, you can :
Use the toggle to enable/disable at any time
Click Edit to adjust timing and customize the email template
Changes take effect immediately
3. Troubleshooting & FAQs
Troubleshooting
• Automation ON but emails not sending — check the guest has a valid email and hasn't unsubscribed. For Birthday, the guest must have a date of birth on file.
• Birthday not triggering for some guests — date of birth missing from guest profile. No birthday email is sent if the field is empty.
FAQ
• Can I customize the email? — Yes. Fully edit the pre-built template. Existing campaign templates cannot be used.
• Can I run multiple automations at once? — Yes. All four can run simultaneously, each triggering independently.
• Who receives automation emails? — Guests matching the event condition, with a valid email on file, who haven't unsubscribed.
• How often does win-back send? — Yearly cycle; minimum 1 year between sends.
• Can I see statistics? — Not in this version. Statistics and history are not yet available for automations.